The what if your wrong argument.

[The Grand Nudger]

You don't seem to understand what's being explained to you here Zaki. While employing caution during decision making is generally a very good idea, it is impossible to do so with this particular idea. By employing caution (invoking faith, or following the rules, if you will) towards any given god, you would invariably draw the ire of another. It is impossible to hedge this bet, and it needs to be said that any god at all would know exactly what you were doing in the first place. You cannot spread the risk, due to the often contradictory teachings of each religion that you would have to entertain. This is why Pascals wager, though often offered as a defense of the christian faith, actually gets more talking time with the atheist crowd. It presents precisely the sort of dilemna that it is proposed to avoid. Stick around, you'll know this stuff like the back of your hand.

[Zaki Aminu]

You don't seem to understand what's being explained to you here Zaki. While employing caution during decision making is generally a very good idea, it is impossible to do so with this particular idea. By employing caution (invoking faith, or following the rules, if you will) towards any given god, you would invariably draw the ire of another. It is impossible to hedge this bet, and it needs to be said that any god at all would know exactly what you were doing in the first place. You cannot spread the risk, due to the often contradictory teachings of each religion that you would have to entertain. This is why Pascals wager, though often offered as a defense of the christian faith, actually gets more talking time with the atheist crowd. It presents precisely the sort of dilemna that it is proposed to avoid. Stick around, you'll know this stuff like the back of your hand.

Actually, the problem you're wrestling with here is ignorance of the nature of what you're actually trying to decide on. The solution therefore is straightforward. Acquire thorough knowledge about the issues involved here. Just throwing up your hand in the air as you're doing now and saying you won't bother because the problem is too hard does not help you, does it?

Set about finding out about the Nature of Ultimate Reality first. Once you know precisely What It Is and how it Works, you won't have to make your decision regarding the Afterlife and other things on the basis of ignorance, will youi? That's my point.

[5thHorseman]

So Zaki, when you going to come out as a fundy?

Lol I typed fundy, iPhone changed it to Cindy. If Zaki is stucky, it would be apt.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, must be it, you couldn't possibly be talking out of your ass Zaki. Honestly, reading this shit is like watching a monkey throw darts at an Archie comic and then claiming that the wherever the darts land is the complete design specifications for a Boeing 747. Pointless, and absurd.

[Minimalist]

the complete design specifications for a Boeing 747.

I think that's how Aeroflot gets their planes. Tough on hockey teams.

[ElDinero]

These constant bold italics are doing my head in. Type normally.

[Erinome]

If there is an Afterlife, it would be the greatest foolishness and tragedy to miss out on it, would it not?

If there is an afterlife, how the hell could we miss it? If it is an afterlife, and we are all experiencing life now, since we all die, wouldn't we all have an afterlife?

Whether we end up in "heaven", "hell", or standing on the shore of the river Styx with no money to cross into the underworld...

Shhhh... just shhhhh...

So, it follows from that that no effort should be spared in determining whether or not it does indeed exist. I have not come across a single person who regards the Afterlife as non-existent who has made anything like a serious effort to find out for themselves whether or not it actually exists. Just claiming that others haven't proved its existence to you hardly helps matters, does it?

It's not just an afterlife that can't be proven, it's all claims of the supernatural/metaphysical. You know why shit can't be proven? Because it's not true. Some people, for that reason, just don't give a shit. You wanna tear your hair out chasing elves into a magical forest of wonders- that's your shameful waste of the only life you know you're getting.

Furthermore, to limit one's ambition for oneself to the level of a farm animal's that just lives for the moment and does not engage in a search for an overarching cosmology is hardly worthy of an intelligent human being, is it? The butcher's knife awaits the ignorant animal - should a human being not try to escape from such a fate - if such is at all possible?

I know farm animals that are very ambitious, thank you. I call them sheep and their ambitions are to be rich like all the fancy sheep and go to sheep heaven when they die. It doesn't matter to them that their shepherd told them money is bad, or that heaven isn't even a reality. They were raised to be sheep.

For you to claim to be a "Free Thinker", you sure do sound like a sheep.

BAAAHHH BAHH, now.

[Zaki Aminu]

If there is an Afterlife, it would be the greatest foolishness and tragedy to miss out on it, would it not? So, it follows from that that no effort should be spared in determining whether or not it does indeed exist. I have not come across a single person who regards the Afterlife as non-existent who has made anything like a serious effort to find out for themselves whether or not it actually exists. Just claiming that others haven't proved its existence to you hardly helps matters, does it?

How does one go about determining that an afterlife exists?

OK, for arguments sake, lets say that there is an afterlife.

Now what? How does one know what would cause them to miss out on it? How do we know that missing out on it would be a bad thing?

Of all the gods described in various Bronze Age texts, only 2 seem to reward believers. So, right from the start we have many more gods that don't seem to mind if you believe they exist or not.

And that only takes into consideration the gods described in the various texts. What's to say that the god that exists is one that isn't in any of the texts?

There are literally an infinite number of gods that could be described that have all sorts of different rules for getting into their afterlives.

My favorite god is the one that rewards those of us that have determined, using the brain he gave us, that there was insufficient evidence to justify belief he exists. The afterlife is filled with non-believers.

You find out if the Afterlife really exists in the same way you find out about other things, as follows:

1. Don't prejudicially write off the possibility of its existence before hand and then try subsequently to rationalize your position.

2. Don't write it off ever unless you have conclusive evidence of its non-existence. Partial evidence - however much of it there appears to be - may still be pointing you in the wrong direction.

3. Don't accept hearsay evidence about it - but diligently and unrelentingly seek out the truth about it yourself!

4. Be serious and therefore precise in your search for it, otherwise you may not recognise evidence of it even if you stumble upon it.

All investigators - including research scientists - have always had to follow the above in order to succeed in their efforts.

[Minimalist]

[leo-rcc]

This the reason Pascal's wager doesnt work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqJpZOljjG8